“Bridal Boot Camp”

Over the last several years, many of my friends have gotten married. Some have even started families. This may be why I have slowly begun to feel like Katherine Heigl in the movie “27 Dresses.” I can relate so well to that movie! I, too, now possess a closet full of gowns I can safely say I will never wear again (even if the bride swore it was a color that would look good on everybody, and was alteration-friendly). Six (or is it seven) times now, I have been the bridesmaid, but not once yet have I gotten my chance to shine as the bride.

 

The other day I read something that made me feel both better, and worse, about playing second-fiddle yet again during a friend’s special day. It seems that, even in the wake of sweeping reforms to mental health care policy (for more on this exciting news click HERE), we have still managed to spawn yet another new and unwelcome pre-wedding-day tradition, the “Bridal Boot Camp”.

 

During their Boot Camp curriculum, brides are instructed in basic training “musts” for wedding day bliss – losing weight through fasts, skipping meals, diet pills, drinking water and rigorous exercise. Now, upon first hearing this news, you might be tempted to ask why any bride – swimming in the bliss of finding her true love, and more than a little over-scheduled as it is with pre-wedding planning – would seek out such an experience?

 

The mystery becomes clearer once we realize that she is probably one of the 70 percent of brides who have already purchased a wedding dress that is one to two sizes smaller than their current size. Wedding dresses aren’t cheap. Desperation can be a powerful motivator.

 

All of which simply leads us to the obvious question – why on earth would any bride put herself in this position by buying a wedding dress that she knows she cannot fit into?

 

I invite you to come up with your own answer to that question.

 

But I will admit, no matter which way I turn it, my mind always returns with the same response: INSECURITY.

 

Now, I ask you, what exactly is there to be insecure about here? You already love yourself at least enough to allow yourself to love someone and be loved in return. Your soon-to-be husband loves you enough to want to spend the rest of his life with you – with your body, mind, heart and spirit – and he has already let you know that by proposing to you. You have friends and family surrounding you who are planning to help with, and join you for, your special day.

 

And while I will concede that there is nothing wrong with wanting to be in your best physical shape and health for both you and your partner, I will also challenge each of us (myself included) that this should be an ongoing process – and a realistic one – with our ultimate goal being to maintain the energy, strength and wellness to truly enjoy our wedding day – and every day – of our lives.

 

In fact, scarcely a day goes by when I don’t think of the story of St. Francis of Assisi. One day a man asked him, “If today was your last day on earth, how would you spend it?” St. Francis answered, “Well, I would probably weed the garden, because that is what needs doing.”

 

With careful attention to our body’s daily needs, “Boot Camp” emergency dashes become irrelevant. I invite you, now, to imagine with me that your relationship with your body, and with the food you consume, is so mindful, healthful, respectful and nourishing that, when your wedding day arises, you simply slip into the gown that fit you the day you bought it, and still fits you perfectly today!

 

Today, you ate responsibly and healthfully to meet your body’s needs, because that was what needed doing.

 

Today, you got married, because that was what needed doing.

 

And today, you can use the money and time you might otherwise have spent on “Bridal Boot Camp” to enjoy your fantastic honeymoon!

 

 

p.s. I just received word of a rare and exciting footnote to last month’s column – I just heard that MTV has PULLED the show “Model Makers” from its pending lineup. Yay, America – way to speak your mind and let MTV know what we think of their programming, and programming of this type in general! For more on this click HERE.

Model Makers and Mad Men

I live in Houston, Texas, which for the balance of this year at least will most likely be known as the “Ike City”. Our tree population will never be the same. Similarly, our complacency when it comes to simple comforts like clean water, power and perishable food items has been unutterably shaken. I was joking with a friend of mine the other day that I’m afraid I will end up being one of those little old ladies who can’t break herself of the habit of carrying her cell phone charger, a pack of power bars and a few extra bottles of water around everywhere with her….just in case. Just in case the power goes out again. Just in case the water supply is once again contaminated. Just in case all perishable food once more becomes unsafe to eat.

 

In the midst of it all, MTV released an announcement about their new reality TV series – “Model Makers”. It reads like “America’s Next Top Model” meets “Biggest Loser”, with show producers claiming that, in screening applicants, they are “looking for ‘real’ women of all shapes and sizes, not just stick-thin towering women with no body fat.” However, if the women don’t start out stick-thin, it is clear that they had better finish that way…at least if they want to win. The casting call explains that, once chosen, the fifteen contestants will be “trained” in “modeling skills”, with the winner being the model who can most consistently “put their best foot forward at all times while staying focused on losing weight.” [emphasis added]

The show claims to “go where no other modeling show has gone before”, as “Model Makers transform(s) you by giving you the skills and techniques required to be a high fashion model.” Yet the sole curriculum of the show is an intensive twelve-week weight loss challenge, interspersed with photo shoots! Last time I checked, other modeling shows were still training wannabe models in actual modeling….Tyra Banks and her crew have even been known to admonish modeling contestants not to lose too much weight and thus deal themselves out of the game.

But this show…well, in the interests of cutting right to the chase, why train a model when you can simply starve and exercise her to death and call it “entertainment”?

Confusing, isn’t it. The reality is, our media and fashion industry is suddenly finding itself in the uncomfortable position of not knowing which way the popular consumer-driven wind is blowing when it comes to women and weight loss. On the one hand, we have the recent vicious backlash against overly thin celebrities on the red carpet, with media using the example of voluptuous ‘Mad Men’ star Christina Hendricks as the “hope for the future of female casting”. On the other hand, we have the media coverage of “Model Makers”, manned by a production staff that is desperately attempting to cash in on the still-lucrative but fading craze for bones.

But make no mistake about it. The media and fashion industry have not had a sudden awakening. They are not experiencing an attack of conscience in their sudden praise of curvier stars like Hendricks. They do not care what size the models or celebrities walking down the red carpet are. They only care how we react to what their photographs and bylines evoke in us. If they print something and we react – usually in the form of spending money – then they have hit the jackpot, and we can rest assured we are in for more of the same until we stop buying in, and our interests and wallets turn elsewhere.

So in this sudden sharp contrast between “Model Makers” and “Mad Men”, the truth is finally revealed. We, the fish long accustomed, Pavlovian-style, to hanging out helplessly on the end of a media-bated hook, finally wake up to realize that we have a SAY in all this! YES. We are not controlled by the media, or by the fashion industry – not unless we allow it.

We have busy lives. We get weary, and then we get lazy. We fail to notice what we are watching, consuming, when we turn on the television at night, slip into a movie theater or open a magazine. We passively watch as stars are humiliated for being too fat, then too thin – the same stars. We even begin to aimlessly weigh in on the debates, with no thought to our individual assessment of how this does or does not relate to anything that actually matters.

What is worse, we call it “entertainment”, even when it doesn’t entertain us, even when it leaves us feeling hollow, lost, ashamed, afraid, alone.

But now this game, this “contest”, has gone too far. We have some standards – and it is only entertainment until it kills. People are dying and other people are making money off of it. Media coverage of the fashion industry kills. We have noticed. Suddenly, this “game” of “Model Makers” just got serious. And we don’t want to play anymore. More than skin and bones, more than so-called glamour, more than a $100,000 prize and the “career of our dreams”, we want to live.

This is Beauty Undressed. This is where it all comes down. This is where we turn, stand, stare….see ourselves in the mirror, and for the first time become willing to dive down far beneath the surface of our skins and our lives to find out what really counts, what we are really doing with our days and why we are really here. This is the only place where we will encounter true BEAUTY right where it has always been – in our priorities, in our integrity, in our sense of human worth, in our insistence on a basic human dignity that allows us to be able to eat when we are hungry, stop when we are full and spend the rest of our precious energy and limited years engaged in LIVING OUR LIVES.

I just lived through a 600 mile-wide category 3 hurricane. We have the largest power grid in the nation and at the time of this writing there are still several hundred thousand Houston residents who do not have power and clean water. I was without power and drinkable water for a week and a half, and not once during that time did I consider skipping a meal or taking a weight loss challenge in order to make myself more beautiful or acceptable to someone else, or to myself. Rather, I discovered all the beauty and acceptance I will ever crave in banding together with others during the storm itself to cook potluck meals and reassure each other that we would get through this together. I enjoyed so much beauty and community in lending a hand to friends and neighbors to clean up in the aftermath of the storm. And I reveled in the tremendous beauty and awesome humility of allowing friends and family to help me when I too had nowhere safe and comfortable to stay.

In short, I encountered beauty where beauty is, always has been and always will be – on the INSIDE, in my relationships with myself and others, and right within my very own heart.

So, at least as far as I am concerned, “Model Makers” and all the others like it can go back to where they came from – to the land of the empty. Because, when we really stop to think about it, we are already dwelling in the fullness of our here-and-now real dreams – of life, of love, and the sheer wonder of being healthy, safe and alive.

 

Warmly and with HOPE,

Shannon